One of the most common problems when running SQL Servers is slow queries. The help desk or database team usually hears that described as the application is slow or ...

A common SQL habit is to use SELECT * on a query, because it’s tedious to list all the columns you need. Plus, sometimes those columns may change over time, so why not just do things the easy way? But ...

Part of the problem is that there is no magic bullet, and for almost every best practice, I can show you at least one exception. Typically, a developer finds his or her own favorite methods — though ...

As I discussed in an earlier column, SQL Server keeps a plan cached for each query it sees (assuming the query requires planning in the first place, of course). That's great for speeding up processing ...

PolyBase, a data virtualization feature for SQL Server, allows users to seamlessly query data from various external sources directly using T-SQL (Transact-SQL) without the need for separate client ...

I've been playing around with the new Microsoft service, currently in preview and it's time to show off what it can do. Have you ever struggled with a database performance problem or ever struggled to ...

SQL is a convenient way to manage and query your data, but badly written queries can tie up your database. Here are seven common SQL traps and how to avoid them. Database developers have it tough.

As I described here, Power BI can send SQL queries in parallel in DirectQuery mode and you can see from the Timeline column there is some parallelism happening here – the last two SQL queries ...